A Hexenbiest and a Grimm Get into a Car
by midnightjen
Summary: Back before it all really started Adalind and Nick had to endure a car ride to visit Rosalee in the hopes of stopping (saving) Juliette. Takes place way before This Feels Familiar.


**a/n:** Because what thinktink2 wants, thinktink2 gets. This one takes place before This Feels Familiar, way back in season 4 before, right after Adalind tells Nick he's going to be a father.

 **A Hexenbiest and a Grimm get into a Car...**

He had his jaw clenched so tight it's a wonder he hadn't cracked any teeth. Clenching his jaw, though, was a lot safer than how he really wanted to express the anger burning inside him.

Adalind was pregnant. With his son. Pregnant. With his son. His son.

How the fuck had that happened? Okay, no, he knew how that had happened, could very clearly remember how that had happened but, just, how? How the fuck could the universe think his life wasn't already screwed up enough that they had to do this to him? What the hell had he done to deserve all this? Was he somehow paying for the centuries his ancestors had spent just beheading wesen left and right? Was that what this was? Centuries of karmic payback just slapping him in the face?

Because Adalind was pregnant. Like really pregnant. Like eight whole god damn months pregnant. With his son.

A son.

He was going to have a son with a woman he hated. With a woman he wanted dead more than he'd ever wanted anyone dead in his whole life. He was going to have a son with the hexenbiest who had slept with him to take away his powers and caused this whole thing with Juliette. He was going to have a son with the woman he held responsible for all of the bad things that had happened in his life the last few months.

That woman.

The woman he'd just protected with his own body from Juliette.

Adalind Schade. Pregnant. With his son.

And fuck if he hadn't helped her into his car without a second thought. Used his body as a shield to protect her from the woman he loved. Because Adalind might be the closest thing to the devil he'd ever met but that baby was innocent and Juliette had honestly threatened to kill it.

Him.

Jesus fucking Christ he was going to have a son.

A boy. A tiny little innocent life that needed his protection. Possibly from its own mother.

Because Adalind Schade was the mother of his child.

He wished she was lying. He really, really wished he could believe it when he told himself she was. This was Adalind, she made a life out of lying, manipulating and twisting everything around her to get exactly what she wanted.

But she didn't want him. She'd never actually wanted him. That was why – how – he knew she was speaking the truth. That baby she was carrying was his, that little life she'd created – the one Juliette had just threatened – was one he'd helped bring into being.

A son.

He was going to have a son.

He was going to have a son with Adalind Schade, the woman he hated, the woman he would rather kill than speak to.

The woman currently sitting in his passenger seat trying to pretend her hands weren't shaking.

He glanced over at her with an annoyed frown. She had them clasped tightly in front of the enormous belly where his child had been growing – unbeknownst to him – for eight freaking months and they were shaking slightly. He chanced a glance at her face but she was turned to look out the window so he glanced back out at the road and continued to stew in silence.

How did this happen? How? How could she have let this happen? How could she have not considered it a possibility? She'd said it hadn't occurred to her, when she'd followed him out of the office. She'd pleaded with him to understand that given what she was doing and that the intention of the act had been to rob him of his powers, the ability to create life just hadn't occurred to her as a possibility.

He and Juliette never had unprotected sex. He could own that. It was his stupid mistake too.

But still, how could she not tell him? How could she wait eight freaking months and then just drop in all "hey, remember that morning with 'Juliette'?" and expect him to be okay?

He was not okay! He was so not okay.

But she wasn't either.

He glanced over at her again to see that her hands were still shaking. She wasn't cold. She was wrapped up in that warm coat, the heating in his car was working just fine (though it wasn't really needed) and frankly, weren't pregnant women always hot? She'd definitely felt warm when he'd taken her hand to help her into the car – because as much fun as it would have been to watch her struggle, she just couldn't lift herself up into his car, and he may hate her but he wasn't about to let the incubator of his son fall trying to get into a car when he could help.

Even if he had thought about it for a good twelve seconds.

He turned away from her and stared ahead, slowing for the red light. He felt her gaze on him but when he turned to look she was staring resolutely ahead.

Her hands were still shaking. This time, he realised why, this time, with her eyes staring ahead at the cars crossing through the intersection, he realised what the shaking meant.

She was scared.

Adalind Schade was scared. Adalind Schade who was pregnant with his child and had never ever shown any fear while around him (outside of that one time after he'd taken her powers and even then she'd been more horrified than scared), was terrified.

Adalind Schade was terrified. Just a couple of months ago the thought would have made him smile. The idea that the hexenbiest who had caused him so much trouble was terrified would frankly have made his day. Not now, though, not when he realised there was so much more going on than he knew.

Because if Adalind hadn't come to him before now then it meant that she'd only come to him because she had no other choice. If were possible, the thought made him clench his jaw even harder. Would he ever have even known he had a son out there? Would she have kept him from the knowledge until one day, this grown man would just turn up on his doorstep to meet the father he never knew.

He suspected that's exactly what would have happened. Nick wanted to hate her for that but when he considered his track record, when he factored in the fact that he'd stolen her last child, the one that wasn't even his, and sent Diana away with his mother, he understood her reticence.

She didn't trust him not to take her child away from her again. She'd come to him out of desperation, not any feeling of obligation. She'd come to him because she was terrified and she needed his help and she'd known, even as she'd walked into Renard's office that he would help, not for her, maybe not even for Juliette, but for his unborn son.

She'd come to him believing he was a good man, someone who would protect her because of the innocence of their child, not because she particularly wanted him to know the truth. She'd risked losing another child just to keep her son safe.

He hated that he respected her for that. Hated that he respected her at all.

He hated that, when faced with Juliette threatening Adalind – and his son, because she'd been perfectly aware Adalind was pregnant – he'd so easily shielded her body with his own. He hadn't been happy about it but it had been instinctual. He'd been hyperaware of her pressed against his back, of her hand gripping the back of his jacket reassuringly. He couldn't blame her for her scared words to the other offices who'd been right there to see it all.

Adalind Schade would do anything to keep her child safe. Wasn't this second child proof of that? But now she sat beside him, on the way to Rosalee at the Spice Shop, willing to help him fix Juliette just so that she could stay alive a little bit longer. Just so that her baby would have the chance to see the world.

His baby. His son. The one he helped create because he was an idiot who couldn't tell the difference between Juliette and the woman he hated just because, at the time, they happened to be wearing the same face.

'Why didn't you tell me?' the words were harsh, spat out of his aching jaw between teeth and filled with and anger he wasn't sure was directed at her or Juliette or even himself.

Adalind didn't answer right away, she seemed to be deciding whether or not she wanted to tell him the truth. She did though, when she eventually spoke. 'Do you think I wanted this? That I wanted any of this? Why would I tell you I was pregnant when you hate me? What was the point? Would you have wanted anything to do with him? With me?'

He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he wanted anything to do with her now but that was his son in there. A life he helped create and was already feeling the first niggling's of love for. Did it really matter how he'd come about? It wasn't like they could change that.

'I don't know.'

Adalind laughed but it was dark and painful. 'I didn't even know,' she told him bitterly. 'Henrietta had to tell me.'

'You didn't know?'

Still sounding bitter, Adalind snapped, 'I was a little busy trying not to get killed.'

That surprised Nick. Wasn't Adalind working with the Royals? Hadn't she made that deal with Viktor to get Diana back, the one that had brought her back to Portland? She made it sound like Juliette wasn't the only one trying to kill her.

'Who's trying to kill you?' he asked, purely because if he was going to keep his baby safe he kind of needed to know what the hell Adalind had gotten herself into this time.

'Why do you care, Nick?' Adalind sighed. 'They didn't succeed.' She turned away from him and looked out the side window. 'Now it's just Juliette. I think.'

'She doesn't know what she's doing,' he defended automatically, drawing a snort of what he thought might be disgust from Adalind.

'She knows what she's doing,' she told him. 'She just doesn't care anymore. I hurt her so she wants to hurt me. She doesn't care if I'm pregnant – that killing me would kill the baby – because then there's no evidence of what happened between us.' Adalind glanced back at him. 'I didn't know that would happen,' she told him. 'That Juliette would become a hexenbiest.'

'Did you care?'

'No,' she replied honestly. 'You stole my daughter, Nick, you deserved a lot worse than to lose your powers.'

He couldn't argue with that. The Adalind his mother had brought to him for protection was vulnerable, she'd cared nothing for the feud between them, only that her daughter was safe. When it hadn't looked like Nick would be able to help her she'd fled. He supposed, given what had happened after, he didn't blame her. She should have run further. She shouldn't have gone to the father of her daughter, shouldn't have expected him to help.

'I'm not sorry,' Nick told her.

'Is she,' Adalind hesitated, he could guess what she wanted to ask but he would wait for her to voice the question as he took the next corner, slowing for a pedestrian already in the road. 'Is she safe?'

'Yes,' Nick said, he wasn't about to give her any more information. He didn't trust her not to go running off with it back to the Royals under the assumption that they could better protect her and her children than Nick and his friends.

He almost wouldn't blame her.

'Kenneth doesn't care about me or this baby,' she announced, after they'd sat in silence for a couple of blocks. He hated the silence for how awkward it was but it was easier to sit there hyperaware of her beside him than to have to make small talk when a large part of him wanted to reach over and strangle her.

'What?'

'I thought he'd try to kill me, try to kill the baby but he was a lot more interested in Juliette, in how he could use the fact that we're having a baby to get her to work against you.'

'That's how Juliette knew you were pregnant,' Nick realised. 'He's already reached out to her.'

Adalind nodded. 'It's why I came to you. Juliette didn't like me before I was pregnant with your son, now she wants to kill me. You were the only way I could think of to keep my baby safe.'

The implication that she would have simply run if Juliette hadn't been a factor hung in the air between them. The truth she wasn't speaking weighed heavy on him. He'd never have met his son, never have known he had a child, if Adalind hadn't needed someone to protect her.

He hated Adalind, now possibly more than ever, but he couldn't deny that now that he knew he was going to have a son, he was incredibly grateful she'd chosen to come to him. It would be a while before he could truly wrap his head around it, around the idea of them as parents. The idea that because of this, because of choices they'd both made, they were forever going to be in each other's lives.

He was going to have to spend the next eighteen years – minimum – dealing with her.

It was like his worst nightmare had just come true.

Adalind Schade. In his life. For decades to come.

Seriously, what the hell was the universe forcing him to make up for?

'You should have told me.'

'So you could go to doctor's appointments with me?' Adalind mocked. 'So you could fetch me ice cream at two in the morning? Or were you planning on shopping for clothes and a stroller?'

'You should have told me,' he repeated, not even knowing how he was supposed to respond to her snark.

Would he have gone to appointments with her? Would he have done those things? What about Juliette? Would their relationship have survived a baby with the hexenbiest she blamed for ruining their lives? Would he have even told her? Or would he have just sent Adalind away and refused to believe anything she had to say.

'I didn't know how,' she surprised him by whispering. 'We've hurt each other, Nick, a lot. Why would I believe for an instant you would have wanted anything to do with me or this baby – who, by the way, is really starting to dislike my sitting down. He won't stop kicking me.'

Adalind shifted, trying to get more comfortable and Nick glanced down at her swollen stomach. His hand twitched. Adalind must have noticed because she reached for his hand again. This time he didn't protest when she dragged it toward her stomach and laid his palm against the warm black cotton of her dress. It was the weirdest sensation Nick had ever felt – and amusingly rhythmic. It felt like his son was in there stomping his feet against the sides of her belly, like he could get her to move if he just kicked hard enough.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever experienced.

For the first time since he'd walked into Renard's office, Nick relaxed. His life had fallen apart, Juliette was a hexenbiest, he hadn't heard from Trubel in a while and his mother was off in hiding with the hexenbiest child he'd helped her kidnap, but here he was, in his car driving toward a possible solution, feeling the innocent (powerful) kick of his son.

He had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do next, no idea how this was supposed to work, but he did know that he couldn't let Adalind run away with his kid, he couldn't let Juliette kill her and he couldn't let anything happen to this being he hadn't even known existed but, against his better judgement, he was already starting to love.

'He's strong,' Nick croaked, emotion he wasn't used to feeling clogging up his throat.

'Guess he takes after his dad,' Adalind murmured, placing her own hand beside his.

Nick coughed to clear his throat, he could finally see Rosalee's shop up ahead. 'No,' he told Adalind. 'I think he gets that from both of us.'

This time, he really didn't hesitate to help her out of the car.


End file.
